BOOTHBAY HARBOR, Maine — The deck at Brady's restaurant in Boothbay Harbor is quiet in November, save for some brown leaves rustling in the wind. Gone are the summer tourists who, for a few months, crowded the downtown. Now, it's easy to see how one might get lonely here along the coast during the winter isolation.
The inside workings of Brady's, though, tell a different story. Traditionally closed on Mondays, the restaurant now hosts "community lunches" at 11:30 a.m. from November through the spring, inviting people to come eat for free and enjoy each other's company.
"Anybody you want to see may be at community lunch," organizer Tancy Mitchell said. "Fishermen come in if they’ve come in off the water. Sometimes workers just pop in and grab a bowl of soup and go back to work."
The community lunches have only been happening at Brady's for a couple of years, but Mitchell is no stranger to this kind of work. She used to help put on community meals that ran at local churches for more than a decade, but that stopped during the pandemic. Her daughter, Jennie Plummer, owns Brady's and decided she would provide a place for Mitchell to host.
"The first week this year, we had 100 [guests], which is the most we’ve ever served," Mitchell said.
Mitchell just turned 80 years old, but she makes fish chowder every week for the community lunches. To her, it's a natural thing to do.
“Life would be pretty dull if you just didn’t do things," Mitchell said.
"My mother is a force of nature," Plummer said, noting she wishes other communities in Maine would follow suit.
"We’d like to see other towns kind of pick up our model and be able to do the same things for other people," Plummer said.
These community lunches are made possible thanks to different sponsors every week, like local businesses, churches, and rotary clubs. On Monday, Hallinan Construction, Inc. sponsored the meal, despite the fact that less than 24 hours before, they lost a lot of equipment in a fire on a nearby island.
"We committed to this, and we wanted to be here," Richard Hallinan said about why they still showed up to volunteer. "Everybody’s been very supportive."
"He’s not going to miss out on giving back to the community because he knows the community is going to take care of them," Plummer said.
Couple Dee and Howard Wright, who've been married for 60 years, have been coming to these community lunches pretty much since they started.
"You just meet the nicest people," Dee said.
"It gets us out at least once a week," Howard, who's 94 years old, said.
Even people like Boothbay Harbor-based attorney Richard Elliott have been coming to these meals for a while.
"It is a tight-knit community, and it’s one of these communities where you don’t always need adversity to come together, which is nice," Elliott said, later adding, "It’s nice to see people are coming together off-season as well. This is an opportunity to get out when there’s not a lot open in town.”
Organizers do accept donations at these community lunches. That money is used to fund future meals and other local efforts. They said on Monday, guests gave about $800 total.